[BTS] I want to improve my early game with your advices

[Master_Of_Ideas]

It seems you're worrying about the economy of your empire. There is a detailed article about the different economies, written by a very good Deity player. It provides you with much useful information and tips.

Agree with @ Anysense , turtling with 5 cities is not a good solution to economic problems. If you manage to build an efficient economy, you'll be able to afford a 20+ cities empire and still be a tech leader, at Prince level.

OK, thanks. So I will go and expand.

Yes, Alphabet is a good choice for Emperor and below.
If I were you, I would send a workboat to find Darius, for the traderoutes with him. You may also get some small techs from him through trade as well.

Good idea. Minding that GLH could be ready soon this is a huge amount of cash, so I will whip the boat, even though it's 21 turns unhappiness.

 

[AcaMetis]

What is MC?

Metal Casting, the technology required to build The Colossus.

Yeah, that would be a question I would asked later. What would worked at monarch here? In Prince I would say I have already won now, even when I am doing relatively idiotic things. I have the biggest research, so I could spam wonders and soon overran the others or go for a solid space victory. But what in monarch?

A Construction attack is an attack with catas, right?

I'm honestly not sure, as there's a massive difference between what can work and what a given player can make work. Obviously a one city Skirmisher rush would have been much harder had you been facing Archers instead of Warriors, and if that early attack had failed you'd have been set back immensely in early production and some diplo. But would that have been game over right there and then? I don't think so. I've seen people drag a win kicking and screaming out of bleaker situations on Deity, so for sure it'd still be winnable, but whether any given person could have made it work? I'unno.

Yes, a Construction attack is pairing your best unit (preferably War Elephants, Swords or Axes if you lack those, Archers if you're desperate) with Catapults to bombard down city defences, weaken defenders with collateral damage, and than attack to capture the city. It's a slow, but consistent approach to warfare.

Would you fogbust with cities in monarch too, beginning now? Here I could setup 3 cities and fogbust nearly the whole space. If no, when would you start? After alphabet, after CoL or after currency?

Using cities to fogbust is something I'd only consider if I'm Creative and have build Great Wall, and even than I'd still need units to check and/or clear the field whenever I move outside my territories. You don't want barbarians to show up right on your border with no prior warning if you can help it, and you definitely don't want barbarian cities to show up right in your face and stifle your expansion options.

 

[Master_Of_Ideas]

Problem wiith barbs:

I have just a warrior at my cap. If I upgrade, my money is over and the city falls into unhappiness after I move him out. GLH needs 5-6 moves until whip. So I see that fogbusting at the south could help. While I could managed the coastline, the inland is hard... but I focussed on silver and should build and defend it.

________________

Economical Question aside:

Now, with 5 cities i have balance +-0 with only 20% research. How would you manage that short-term, to get minimum until alphabet? I could run scientists, go for water tiles wherever possible or just wait it out until my cities have grown more in commerce, and build bulbs meanwhile. If I do nothing, I can hold the line only 6 turns more, and there's no sign, that the situation will change soon. Alphabet will be ready in 10 turns. I cannot even imagine how I could finance a 6th city now!

Without huts the problem would be much more direct, my research would had already crippled now. So what? As far I see Ragnar has only 2 cities and he has gold. So this means he would overran me soon in research.

By the side: My cities are all connected for now.

_________________

Many questions. I stop for now and appeciate your feedback on the different little questions. Thanks for all feedback until here. Maybe this can be my best game as Prince with all these new information. Let's learn as much as possible to achieve a very fast win.

By the side:
Assuming that my position is on a clear victory path, what would you do to get a fast win? What would you focus on in research after alphabet? Can it be intelligent to bribe my neighbors into war with my tech advance? Ragnar will surely accept.

 

[konata_LS]

[...] Archers if you're desperate) with Catapults to bombard down city defences,[...]

Your comments have plenty sense of humour and remind me of an Archers + sieges attack

Spoiler Archers + Construction rush at Deity :

From 19:26, attack with a stack of Hwachas and Archers. As you described, "desperate" .

Admittedly, that cooked map is indeed difficult. Without metal, no horse, Archers may become a solution before HBR, under such extremely tough situation.

 

[dontworryabouttsunami]

Round 104:

I managed to get a barbarian city at the coast. It wouldn't be my long-term best position, but it's okay. 3 resources in inner ring doesn't need fast expansion.

View attachment 612504

Kind of an offhand point but I think that's an awesome city. It has three strong tiles all in the first ring, every tile is green and it has lots of forest to boot. It would be nicer with a river but it's still very good.

 

[Master_Of_Ideas]

Thanks altogether!

I plan this strategy next moves:
- Consolidate, buildup cities for more pop, creating more huts or using sea tiles or scientists
- Starting foreign trade as soon as possible
- Go into MC for the UB (extra gold, production and 1 happiness!) and thenafter Colossus
- Thenafter go into Currency

Or would you focus Great library instead of Colossusus?
I will try to finance that all with failgold, e.g. oracle

 

[Master_Of_Ideas]

You have access to copper, yes ?
If you want to be extra safe, you can whip an axe in 2 turns (sorry me no conosco les nombres pour l'epic speed).
Maximize the overflow hammers, overflow to complete the Great Lighthouse. (It's alright to work all FIN coast for a turn if that's needed.)
Don't whip too early, or you'll lose production. Whip when you need the axe.

Whipping Wonders is never advisable (because there is a malus). Setting up whips to overflow into wonders can work

Good idea. This helps with 3 aspects:
- Getting much more (9 more)
- Whipping correctly and using overflow
- Using the whip again (cap has no malus anymore)
- Keeping the border save

I calculated, using skirmishers will not be better. Ax needs 52, I get 5 and can whip 2 citizen to 90. That's nearly one complete citizen as overflow!

 

[Master_Of_Ideas]

1.5. Resumption: After the war: City and research expanding

Situation in round 119.

OK, I did it two times: Whipped an axe and thenafter an galley in the cap just to give overflow into GLH. It's ready.

That gives a solid 8 all-in-all.
I used the situation to whip in every city and changed civic to tribalism just to save money. Spiritual as thanks. In approximately 20 turns I will switch back, meanwhile chopping granarys and librarys, building huts and maybe bulbs. So whipping everywhere at once can save me some money

I am back at 30%, producing just 15 bulbs anymore. But alphabet is ready in 3 and I am sure, I can soon come back to 30 bulbs, when the cities has regrown. I build huts and chop in Surys Cap and the other small town there, chopping a worker in the barb city. So this can consolidate. I hope, it was a good way to deal with the economic situation.

_______________

I get learnt Brennus (Founder of judaism) and Darius (Founder of Hinduism). Darius has some Ivory. I traded for my horses, seeing that I need none the next turns and needing the additionyl happiness. Now, when silver is connected. I have +2 happiness, cities can rise to pop 6-7.

My workboat is now searching for more people.

Ragnar is without any religion. What do you think: Should I bribe him with techs to attack Darius?

I am rookie in diplomacy. I know, Darius is the worst enemy of Brennus and Ragnar. What will happen, when I trade with him? (he has alphabet too)

After alphabet I traded Writing and Fishing to get Meditation and Agriculture from Brennus, giving me a -1 to Darius, cause worst enemy. Let's begin with the last planned farm now

_______________

What would you do in tech?

Go for priesthood, try oracle and CoL to found a religion - or focus on MC and Colossus? Or another option?
I decided for focussing CoL, not trying oracle, building research instead. Und look: In Suris Cap it was founded in turn 138.

 

[5tephen]

Not a direct answer but BUG mod is really excellent for helping with diplomacy. It changes the user interface a bit to include information that is already available to you but tedious to find without it. For example, when an AI starts plotting war on you or another AI, assuming there is a second AI you could theoretically ask them to attack they will no longer offer that because “we have enough on our hands right now” but to save you the effort of going into the menu each turn to see if this is the case, a red fist will come up next to their name on the scoreboard to let you know they are plotting war. As it doesn’t affect gameplay rules you could install it now and keep playing your current save.

https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/download-bug-and-bat-here.274636/

 

[Master_Of_Ideas]

Not a direct answer but BUG mod is really excellent for helping with diplomacy. It changes the user interface a bit to include information that is already available to you but tedious to find without it. For example, when an AI starts plotting war on you or another AI, assuming there is a second AI you could theoretically ask them to attack they will no longer offer that because “we have enough on our hands right now” but to save you the effort of going into the menu each turn to see if this is the case, a red fist will come up next to their name on the scoreboard to let you know they are plotting war. As it doesn’t affect gameplay rules you could install it now and keep playing your current save.

https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/download-bug-and-bat-here.274636/

Mhh... when I get to know they are plotting war, which I wouldn't know otherwise, shouldn't I think it as cheating?

 

[AcaMetis]

That's the beauty of BUG mod: It only tells you an AI is plotting war if you could find out that information yourself. In this case getting that information relies in being able to ask an AI about being bribed to go to war with another AI - if they refuse because "We have enough on our hands right now", they're plotting war (and by the way, if you ever see WHEOOHRN on the forum, that's what that's referring to). If you can't ask about that, for whatever reason (no valid targets to ask about, the AI refuses to talk to you, etc.), BUG won't tell you whether that AI is plotting war. It's not cheating, it's saving you the micromanagement of going through the list of AIs every turn and checking whether they're plotting war manually. Nothing more.

 

[5tephen]

The point is you would know it but you'd have to go into the trade screen each turn to check if "we have enough on our hands right now" is given as a reason for not being able to bribe into war. It presents information that is available to you in a much easier format. As another example if you go into Darius trade screen now it should give you a list of cities he could theoretically trade to you if he wanted so you know he has that many cities plus one (his capital which he cannot trade under any circumstance.) BUG takes this information and puts it in a city count next to the AIs name which is much less effort to follow.

Edit: Sorry for the cross post with AcaMetis

 

[Master_Of_Ideas]

Ahhh.... I saw it for myself. Well, I am in round 154 now.

There's Brennus, founder of judaism, next to Huanya Capac, founder of buddhism, next to Darius, founder of Hinduism. I founded Confizionism, but decided not to convert. I have no border with anyone, want to settle some islands first to broaden my commerce network.

But the question is still interesting: When should I bribe someone into war? When I bribe them against Darius, I risk to lose my Ivory. I have monarchy now, but I seem to be a bit planless, how I could go further.

Convert to Confuzionism yes/no?
Preparing war or settling the middle islands first for commerce?
Going for a gold city in my home continent and setting palace there?
Or just trying to finish my great scientist and building an academy?
Is the research okay for the aim to achieve fast victory or too low?

I am mostly isolated in the western area and could settle peaceful.

What would you do?

 

[dontworryabouttsunami]

I wouldn't worry about bribing anybody to war. They need ships to reach you (right?) so you should be pretty safe. You have an awful lot of land all to yourself, more than enough to win the game. I would get Currency and Monarchy, settle all that land and grow your cities. You're going for MC for Colossus which is also not a bad idea. If you go for Colossus, you'll benefit from coastal sites (like Commerce Town probably could've been 1 square north). I understand that with Colossus, coast is better to work than cottages, so don't even build them in coastal towns until all the coast is being worked.

You have two golds to settle which will pay for themselves. A city NW of the barbarian sheep might be good. Your prospective "P" site looks kind of sad to me with all those plains; I might rather put one city between the Stone and the Wheat and then another for the Deer and Sheep.. oh my gosh you also have lots of Silver and Fur... (maybe you need that Deer for the Silver, if there's no southern seafood). You may not even need Monarchy. With MC, Forges will give you +2 happiness. Settle your land and win the game. Build lots of Workers!!!

 

[Master_Of_Ideas]

I wouldn't worry about bribing anybody to war. They need ships to reach you (right?) so you should be pretty safe. You have an awful lot of land all to yourself, more than enough to win the game. I would get Currency and Monarchy, settle all that land and grow your cities. You're going for MC for Colossus which is also not a bad idea. If you go for Colossus, you'll benefit from coastal sites (like Commerce Town probably could've been 1 square north). I understand that with Colossus, coast is better to work than cottages, so don't even build them in coastal towns until all the coast is being worked.

You have two golds to settle which will pay for themselves. A city NW of the barbarian sheep might be good. Your prospective "P" site looks kind of sad to me with all those plains; I might rather put one city between the Stone and the Wheat and then another for the Deer and Sheep.. oh my gosh you also have lots of Silver and Fur... (maybe you need that Deer for the Silver, if there's no southern seafood). You may not even need Monarchy. With MC, Forges will give you +2 happiness. Settle your land and win the game. Build lots of Workers!!!

OK, that's a good idea: Not building that many huts, but working sea tiles instead and settling on new islands. I played a bit further until currency. Some cities have instantly 15 commerce after founding.

Yea, the fur. But it is somewhere, where I cannot build a city, which has more than 1 food tile. I don't know... when would you found it? I delayed it, because it's effects are just getting +1 happiness and fogbust the south (the barbs are really annoying there!), some extra resources, but it will develop slow and costs more than I get.

Yea, the P side is not strong, it delays on outer-ring resources to do something which is good and it's only use will be fogbust and producing units. So it's sad. The complete inland is sad... I planned the palace city south from barb sheep, but this needs many troops to get rid of it an thenafter a long period of time until it can start to be useful. Settling the inland is a pain... settling the coast is far better.

And no, there's no seafood in the south. Just a cold ice-desert...

 

[Master_Of_Ideas]

Here is the situation in round 180:

I got currency, monarchy, colossus, CoL (founded confuzionism without converting). There are 9 possible city sites:

1) has wheat, sheep, stone, but only plains
2) has corn, shares horse with the city east, some grassland and some sea tiles. Relatively dense to actual palace
3) has fish and some hills, makes it a solid production site with a good lump of commerce
4) is the position south the barb sheep, which I planned as central palace location. It can get 2 spices (one on plains, one on grassland), a little pond and one gold. After 3rd ring it could connect the second gold (which isn't that great, cause the other civs have gold too). To settle here I need to kill the barb city,
5) is the northest part of the starting continent, having wheat, clam and plenty of sea tiles
6) connects iron and has plenty of sea. It seems, there is Pericles around in this area, which is not contactable from the others
7) is a site on the most northeast island. It has 2 clam and iron.
8) most south. It has one deer, one silver and one fur. Third ring will give another fur and another silver. But it has not even a grassland tile...
9) is the most east area, giving silk, iron and fish. Solid commerce area and important to block Ragnar, who want to expand here

Where would you settle first?
And how would you manage to build buildings?
Where would you set up Moai?

Learning: When I just have 1 food tile and no production tile, son't start with library. That's a pain.

I think about settling at 7 at first. Here's a big picture:

 

[Master_Of_Ideas]

CoL needs a lot of food surplus, which you seem to lack.

Why? I don't unterstand...
I don't run caste, I want to get the courthouses. In some cities I have -8 upkeep cost.

Looking at your screenshots, my first thoughts were :
- Well, settle the islands. With the GLH already built, their net worth is very high.

That's an argument for building the planned island cities at first.

Then, you also need to do some backfilling in your own land. And this is a little trickier. Your starting area has not gifted you with a great plot of land (which is to be expected under the settings you're playing, Tectonics & all - Tectonics is known to be a very poor template). Acquiring more commerce is actually quite difficult.
The Khmer cities are quite good. Your 2 original ones are pretty bad (Fish city can be devolved to specialists hiring). Backfill cities can work some food (sheep/deer) but will never contribute a ton of commerce.

The problem is: It won't just not contribute, it will cost and have probably a negative net worth. Now what to do now? Accept this for the additional resources, fogbusting and a production site - or postpone that further?

NB : note that the trouble with Monarchy (or Hereditary Rule) is that you don't need the extra happiness if you lack the food surplus to take advantage of it.
I'm unsure whether you have the food surplus or not. The Khmer cities seem to have it. Your Malinese cities don't. The land is just too brown/hilly.
Edit : Am I contradicting myself ? Yes, both CoL and Monarchy need food surplus to yield great results.

This problem exists only for the first, maybe the second city in the west. The other cities, especially the coastal sites have enough food surplus to keep even an 12 people strong city growing. Here's a problem to decide, whether to whip, to use commerce tiles or to break growth for running specialists...

 

[Master_Of_Ideas]

Question on diplomacy

The diplomatical situation is quite comfortable here: We have 3 religion-founders, plotting each other. Ragnar came to Brennus. I have founded Confuzionism.
How would you act diplomatically here?

1) Would you take the religion bonus (e.g. building bonus 25% for running organized religion) and sacrifizing the neutrality?
2) Would you stop trading with one of them when asked from another? Or would you go to war?
3) Would you actively bribe for starting wars?

Staying completely neutral and gathering economic advantages seem a good solution for a while, but I don't build up a friend. But do I need that? In aspects of research I have run 'em out.

 

[Gumbolt]

You should really post saves. 7 cities by 100ad seems low given all the land.

Adopting religion can annoy ai.i generally let them spread to me. Have a plan if you do intend to adopt your own as Ragnar is a war monger.

 

[Master_Of_Ideas]

Here are some saves. They tell the story of the last some turns. If you have an hint, if there's a more effective gameplay, I would appreciate that. Thanks